I believe sodium citrate is what you would use, although I do not know the appropriate dosage. You would have to do some research on how much would be needed to neutralize your specific water hardness for the quantity of water in your wash cycle. I have a detergent formulation book somewhere in a box, if you really need the info I can look it up for you. Don't use citric acid, however, since that will neutralize the alkalinity of your wash solution. Citric acid can be used in the rinse, but prior to the final rinse, to neutralize residual detergent alkalinity as well as soften and smooth clothing fibers. My clothes are softer with citric acid in the rinse than without. I'm using Bi-O-Kleen Premium powder. It does contain sodium percarbonate, yet I use it on all my colored items without any issues. For whites I add a tablespoon of Ecover's "Ecological Non Chlorine Laundry Bleach" (pure sodium percarb) and get outstanding whitening every time. Please note that DRUGSTORE.COM carries this product but incorrectly lists its ingredients as those of the Ecover laundry powder. The bleach is pure sodium percarbonate, and you can verify that directly at the ecover.com web site. OxyClean is about 60% percarbonate, the rest is soda ash or other filler. Using drugstore.com pricing (which isn't the lowest), OxyClean comes out to 38 cents per oz. of percarbonate content compared to 29 cents per oz. for the Ecover product. Using a pure product, like Ecover's, has several advantages: You use 1 TBS (1/2 oz.) of pure product versus double the amount of OxyClean. 40% of the latter is yet more chemicals that you're putting into your wash and the environment, with no benefit. It takes far less packaging material, saving on raw materials, manufacturing costs, and the fuel involved in transport. The Ecover product costs 25% less for effective ingredient, so you're saving money too! I know I've posted a few messages here and in other threads about natural products, but I truly think they have gotten to the point of being viable alternatives without compromising performance. Please forgive me if I tend to evangelize, but when I get excited I can't hold it in! :) One note regarding the Bi-O-Kleen powder -- it does not contain any water softening agents. I have a whole house softener, so this is not an issue, but those with harder water (over 8 degrees hardness) may not experience the same results with the Bi-O-Kleen product. With harder water, you may wish to add some citrate to your detergent compartment. An easy way to determine how much citrate to use for your water would be to measure the hardness of a gallon of water (test strips should work). Add a small quantity of sodium citrate, perhaps 1/2 tsp, dissolve and re-measure. Continue doing this until you achieve the softest water. Take this dose and extrapolate it to the quantity of water your machine uses for the main wash cycle. Add that amount of citrate to your detergent drawer, and to the...

Update - I have soaked the stain in hydrogen peroxide right out of the bottle... I've let it sit in oxy/percarbonate... made percarbonate paste and rubbed it on the stain... let it soak in Clorox 2... sprayed it with Nature's Miracle... re-washed at 140F... STAIN IS STILL THERE! All I can say is that the acid in the urine must have chemically reacted with the cotton fiber, changing its underlying color. Nothing is getting out these stains. The fabric is clean - there is absolutely no odor or residue of any kind. It smells nice and clean, except for the yellow stain. Oh well, time to make some rags...

Hi, I have a question along the same lines...I have an Ipe deck that was built in Summer 2006. The crew that built it did a good construction job, but were complete amateurs when it came to finishing. As I've done research here, they broke every rule in the book. The stain on the deck was Cabot's ATO. Unfortunately, they applied it in on scorching (mid-90's) days in direct sun. So, I have pooling spots. (I was on vacation when they did this). Next, they clearly applied the stain in multiple sessions, as there are at least 2 sets of lap marks. They claimed that that would even out with another coat, which it of course did not. The finish was sticky and uneven from the get go, so the final settle up with them did not go well since they would not strip and start over. Anyhow, as you can probably guess, now 2 years later, the deck looks awful. Faded in most spots, the whole works. I used RAD and a pressure wash rinse but an awful lot of the stain remains on. And I haven't even gone to the rails yet, which actually are still holding the stain. So my question is as I am now out of stripper/cleaner and need to buy more, should I go straight to a NaOH based product like HD-80 or should I give Sodium Percarb another shot? I already had a similar experience with my front porch and resorted to Behr's quick fix...took a ton of product (and $), but finally got the stain off (not sure what it was) and refinished with Woodzotic....have gotten lots of compliments already! I really don't want to repeat the same 10 steps strip on a much larger deck. Any advice you pros have would be very appreciated. Regards, Scott

Yes, Connie. Go to the link "My Page" next to my name and you will see my website which explains the process in full. The detergent I sell is far superior to using plain sodium percarbonate as well as it has 7 other chemicals which make it both safe and more effective. In addition the brightening stage is achieved with milder acids than straight oxalic which will choke you if you are down wind of it.